Fusion Message Board

In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.

Subject: p-B11 + other Alt Fusion Fuel Web Site
Date: Jun 23, 7:03 pm
Poster: Mark Sloan

On Jun 23, 7:03 pm, Mark Sloan wrote:

There is a good technical discussion of alternate fusion fuels including p-B11 (hydrogen and boron11) at http://www.ipp.mpg.de/~Arthur.Carlson

Dr. Carlson is the original source of the excellent posting on this Farnsworth Chronicals site:
Subject: Nuke Fuels
Date: Jan 18, 04:29 am
By Poster: Scott Stephens

Very technical and lots of good references. However, it is a site aimed at main stream professional rather than amateur fusion enthusiasts, so don't expect easy going.

The above posting includes the reaction your are interested in
" (13) p +B11 -> 3 He4 + 8.7 MeV "

Also, in that posting he says,

" Back to /T^2, the maximum values for some of these reactions is given here, with T in keV and in (m^3/sec/keV^2).

fuel T(keV) /T^2
---- ------ -------------
DT 13.6 1.24e-24
DD 15 1.28e-26
DHe3 58 2.24e-26
pLi6 66 1.46e-27
pB11 123 3.01e-27 "

Anyone know if this means 123 keV needed for pB11 reaction compared to 15keV for DD reaction?

Just for interest;

Relative natural abundance of Boron are
Boron 10 19.78%
Boron 11 80.22%
Boron 8, 12 the rest

And Boron 11 is what you want, so natural Boron is not too bad.

But note Richard Hull's posting
Subject: The physics of neutron production
Date: Mar 23, 10:00 am
Poster: Richard Hull

In that posting, he points out (among other things) the problems caused by "extra" atoms or molecules in the reaction zone. That is, they cause unwanted collisions which tend to convert the high velocity reactants to just a uniform temperature hot gas which produces fewer of the desired high velocity impacts needed for fusion. So you should avoid having atoms (or molecules) such as boron 10 or anything else in the reaction zone that are not going to be at very high velocity and fusing.